Game Design Journal: Pointman, Hacker & Thief Pt. 3
In the Game Design Journal series, we’ll track my progress on creating Pointman, Hacker & Thief, a spy-themed RPG.
Unfortunately, I haven’t made much progress recently. Being busy with work, as well as other RPG projects has slowed progress. Yesterday, however, I got back to it, and made some good progress, adding quite a bit of art, as well as working on the Chase rules.
I’ve come up with some fairly extensive hacking rules, but for a simple RPG like Pointman, Hacker & Thief, the rules need to be a bit easier. The rules did involve a series of charts, now they’ll be similar to the chase rules. Later on, I may come out with a supplement that has more complex hacking.
I’m still trying to come up with different spy gear to include. I don’t want the gear to be really over-the-top like some of the later Pierce Brosnan Bond gear, I’m thinking more like Mission Impossible and the current James Bond films.
If you take a look at Warrior, Rogue & Mage, you’ll see that most of the weapons do somewhere in the range of 1d6 damage, while the Dragon guns do around 2d6, which, when compared to the HP of most PCs, there’s a good chance it’s going to drop their HP to zero. I mentioned on Twitter that I was planning on bringing all firearms down so they didn’t have a chance of killing the heroes with one shot, but it was pointed out to me that in a spy game, if bullets begin flying, you’ve already screwed something up. It makes sense.
So as a result, firearms are going to be potentially devastating. A change to the original rules is that armor will reduce the damage of weapons, whereas previously, it increased your defense.This’ll encourage players who plan on getting in a gun fight to pick up a bulletproof vest or something. Also, I’ll be adding rules for using cover to increase your defense.
This game is a bit more tactical than WR&M, but as a spy game, it should be. I’m still keeping the Combat rules to one page (I’ve made sure of that) but I think it’ll still be a great system for anyone wanting to play a spy or heist type game.
Speaking of, I plan on coming out with a setting book for PH&T after the rules come out for playing Dream Thieves, stealing ideas out of peoples heads while they sleep. Sound familiar?
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I think that part of the fun of a good spy story is that both sides are trying to anticipate the moves of the other. They make educated guesses based on their opponents’ histories, MO’s, personalities, etc. Of course they’re wrong often, or don’t take into account that the other side is doing the same (iocaine anyone?) It’s a bit like chess. Not sure how that can work into P,H & T, but there it is.
I’m excited to see how you’ll handle things like chases and modern weapons, especially with respect to the spy/thriller genre. It’ll be interesting to see the contrast with what we’re doing for Resolute, Adventurer & Genius (since it’s pulp action-adventure).
Andrew Modro´s last [type] ..Blue Hex